Thursday, September 14, 2006

On awareness

This morning's Every Day with Jesus reading left me encouraged and challenged. The selected Scripture was Philippians 2:1-11.

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

--Philippians 2:1-4 (NIV)

In the devotion, Selwyn Hughes wrote; "This is the comment made by an engineer: 'The great word in engineering nowadays is "awareness" -- awareness of people.'"

Thanks, Valerie, for reminding me again and again about awareness. Truly it is the way of the Lord to look towards and for others and not just myself.

* * * * *

There is a passage in Chapter 8 of C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters that never fails to grip me every time I read it. I'll just quote the few lines that came to my recollection today. Please bear in mind that this is written from a demon's viewpoint, and so God is considered to be a vile enemy.

...the Enemy [i.e. God] does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment... the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use... For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures [i.e. humans] are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve.

We are to give ourselves entirely to God, and yet in doing so we will find, and not lose, ourselves. I still find this idea incredible and unbelievable.

And yet, in giving myself to someone else, I have come to know myself even better. If this is possible when it comes to human-to-human relationships, surely it must be true on the cosmic level of the God-to-human relationship.

The road ahead will, I believe, be rocky. But if God can withdraw and let us learn to walk on our own, being by our side all the time should we fall (and don't we always?), perhaps I can learn to let go -- to yield my control and fears to God, who is above all.

* * * * *

Reading Chemistry these few days. Just finished Haloalkanes today.

There used to be a time when I loved Chemistry, when it was one of my favourite subjects. And I've been fortunate to have good Chemistry teachers all these years.

But I think there is no more chemistry between me and Chemistry anymore.

A little sad, really.

[I typed 'between me Chemistry' at first; Sara pointed out the missing 'and'. A blogger in the making, or... an EDITOR? *gasp!*]